That’s one that’s unique about school, no matter what, come the end of the semester… someone’s stressing out hardcore and everyone’s rushing to get things done.

The end of the semester is also a terrible time to procrastinate. I’ll admit, I’m a born procrastinator, through and through, my parents procrastinated, my grandparents did it and I’d be willing to bet that even my great grandparents (with the exception of one special man who rode his bike to work until he was 91, somehow that doesn’t fit the image I have of him.). So of course, I’m pro at procrastinating, not so much at getting things done. though.

I procrastinate so often, that I rarely recognize that I’m doing it, it’s just like falling asleep in class, you don’t mean to do it, but it really makes you feel better for a bit.

Procrastination is cheap relief. Saying, “You know what? Screw the fact that I’ve got 10 papers to finish by end of the week. I’m going to watch Moulin Rouge for the 32nd time.” (Moulin Rouge is coincidentally one of my favorite movies, that says a lot considering that the only way that I procrastinate is through movies and T.V., so I have a lot of shows and movies that I stay busy with. ) It destresses the individual (if you’re as good at it as I am, and can completely ignore the time-sensitive things) until it comes time that whatever the individual is procrastinating comes due.

So yeah, I’m probably a little less stressed than most kids at my school (since we’re literally a week away from finals week), with the exception of the go-getters. However, the thing about procrastination is, it’s really just piling up a whole bunch of important, necessary and time-sensitive things into a wagon, that’s just barely off the edge of a cliff, and soon enough it will all come tumbling down at once.

So today, I’m thinking that College, especially come finals week and the end of the semester, is really just an excerise to try and stop kids from procrastinating. It’s seeming less and less about challenging your mind, your opinions and your version about reality and more about, “Did you do that assignmenet?”.

Just like in High School… I suppose it makes sense that this pattern would continue considering that there’s still a valedictorian and you can recieve money for having good grades. (BTW: President’s list and Dean’s list… so not a myth). I’ll admit that I thought that college would be more challenging mentally and intellectually. But I find it’s more about who can take the hit, who can get the grades and all that.

I know that I’ll probably continue (procrastinating), even when it’s done, being in my nature and liking myself enough to not really feel a need to change anything…

So yeah, I’m probably a procrastinator for life. Which leads to some stressful late nights. But on brightside, I learn to get things done quickly (once I start them), do them well (without this skill I would still fail with staying until 3 am) and how to buy myself more time (with teachers and not seem like a slacker).

We’ll see if I can outrun the wagon, that surely is piled too high already, and ready to come flying off the cliff, heading directly for me.

There are some things about College that can make it frustrating, tiring, and well worth your time.

I’ve been going to school for a couple weeks now. I also carpool with my friend, and she works out for 2 hours after we get out of class. Which generally means I get to show my appreciation for our school including a free computer lab in the libary. (and the vending machine that charges you $1.50, no matter what drink you choose.)

A Couple great things about school is that all of the teachers are picked by hand by the dean… so they all generally think the same thigns about many things. (Of course that really only matters if you go to a school where you’re likely to get a long with all of them). Because of this, there is no weird transition phase from class to class… you either enjoy it, or you don’t.

Everything you learn in school tends to tie in together in some way, other disciplines have different theories that basically mean the same thing…. and when you apply all of them, you have some pretty serious theory power. Like for example, in my humanities class this morning we were talking about war and things that I learned in (technically A.P. English) English 1010, and in history class, MLK Jr and Thoreau and all that.

In Education we were talking about the start of education in the U.S., even going into the colonial period… which is what we just finished up in American Civ.

In Anthropology we were talking about how American standard language tends to favor male words opposed to female words and how that affects the views of women in american culture.

In Communication, we switched and talked about how the only way of fixing one person in a family whose having issues is by looking at the problem as a whole. Talking about the way that enculturation in Anthro can lead to biases and specific gender roles, made it so I was able to get some better insight into an example of a dysfunctional family and their communication with each other.

It’s strange… So far every class I’ve had in college have had some sort of weird hook up together. While this makes it easy to remember generally what’s going on in every class… it makes it hard to remember what qualitative means in the communication definition versus the anthropology definition. Or symbols…. or whatever other words link up. Makes tests pretty hard.

I love all of my professors… I get along with them very well, and generally we have very enjoyable discussions on things. They remember strange details about my conversations with them and can pull out random information about me at any moment.

I love that I can walk into the student center and expect something to be going on that will give me free food. I love that there’s so many options at school and that they tell students to make up clubs that they want that the school doesn’t have (they also back said clubs financially). I love the almost free-vending machine in the library. I love that I can print without worry in the library, that I can borrow books I need for classes, that I have friends that work in the school and at any time I can go over and talk to them and they don’t get in trouble. I love that all of the students in my classes actually care and add to the discussions. I love that a teacher will tell us to go home because they’re not in the capacity to actually teach.

So far, I have entered one contest at school… a writing manifesto contest on the topic, “Why write?”. Grand Prize is tuition paid-for next semester. (I’m most definitely interested).

As in my usual procrastinatistic (yes I did make that word up) nature, I started my entry the night before when I couldn’t sleep. Then decided that I needed to go to bed whether I could or couldn’t. Settling on doing it in the morning.

I copied my entry onto my flash drive so if need be, I could do it in the school library. When my 2nd class was canceled I decided to work on the contest in the library. Unfortunately when I saw my two friends in the computer lab, productivity didn’t happen. Instead I helped my friend find art reference for their drawing class.

I knew I got out of class at 12:00pm and could be home by 12:30pm… so I didn’t worry. I could have 2 1/2 hours to finish before it was due by 3:00pm, plenty of time.

My ride decided that she was going to work out after class… I worried.

I went to the library to try and tap out some work… but instead I ended up spiffing up this blog… then facebook and others. Though if I do say myself, it looks a lot nicer now.

I started to worry about how long it was going to take to work out by 1:50pm. Luckily, my ride came out, done with the gym by 1:55pm.

Finally! I had waited 2 hours and had 1/2 hour to spare! No worries.

I’m getting up to leave, when one of our carpool buddies is like”Wait! I just logged in, let me just check my facebook!” So I stood… thinking it would only be a quick, let’s check my messages etc.

My spot was stolen and we didn’t leave until 3pm. So I stood there waiting for an hour.

Vainly hating every person who rides with me.

When really it was my fault for putting off the contest so hardcore.

Ended up making my ride give an old middle school friend a ride home, on the way home it rained.

Stupidly, when I got home I rushed to my laptop to tap out my entry to the contest… which turned out to be mostly editing and adding a sentence or two.

Submitted it by 3:20pm and hoped that they received it and counted it.

They did.

The downside, the next day my entry was posted on the net, and was terrible. Even worse, I hadn’t thought about all of the college’s english majors and serious writer’s editing. You can tell I’m an-almost-fresh-out-of-high-school-college student who procrastinated. With my sad, pathetic, 80 word entry.

I haven’t a shot. And they published it with my real name on it.

I’ve now learned, it’s not worth turning something in last minute if you didn’t do it well.

3. Go to College. Even if you’ll be in debt. I could have been going a full semester sooner if I had ignored my financial inadequacies.

4. No one pays for college. Apply for all the scholarships you might qualify for. If you go to a poor high school… they got programs to get poor people scholarships.

5. Community Colleges are harder than Universities. They’re cheaper and you learn more, but you also do more.

6. The vending machine in the library, has one energy drink slot that is a dollar cheaper than the rest. (Same price as if you bought it at the grocery store) press all buttons before purchasing.

7. Buy your books after you go to all your classes so you can be sure you get the right ones.

8. Don’t put off buying books. Go on KSL or Craigslist or Amazon… or even rent your textbooks online. Anyone who pays $200 dollars or more for only 6 classes of books, is a sucker. So don’t even think about the Used textbooks in the College bookstore. Campus-specific editions don’t matter.

9. When you find out you can check out ALL of your required books for 4 hours at the library… go buy or rent them anyways.

10. If you ignore the above… the library closes early on Fridays… which concidentally is the day when you need to do all your reading for tests or research.

11. Everything will always be due Friday at Midnight. (Web enhanced means they can make homework due on a day without class… even if you haven’t gone for a week).

12. After the first day… stalk all ‘web-enhanced’ or online classes for assignments… check every section.

13. There’s a lot of ways to get out of your tuition if you keep up on Campus News… keep your ears open.

14. Check your School Email tons. Print out all your teachers Syllabuses, Assignment Due Dates Sheets and keep them with you.

15. Going to school early in the morning means not having to compete for parking spots and professors haven’t gotten angry before class. Plus you can have the rest of the day for the homework you will procrastinate. Or for friends. Or for your job.

16. Don’t procrastinate on projects that seem small but for some reason your professor gave you 3 weeks to complete them. They gave you all of that time for a reason.

17. All of your homework will come in major swells, most everything will be due on your birthday.

18. If you do the reading for a class… you won’t talk about it… miss it once and your in-class assignment will be based on the reading and due at the end of your 30 minutes left after the lecture class.

19. Don’t depend on friends to give you a ride to school.

20. Arrive early, sit near the front, and answer questions… being the professor’s favorite is not a bad thing.

21. Look up all of your professors on Ratemyprofessor.com before signing up for their class.

22. Have back-up classes that will still fulfill your Gen Ed requirements….Chances are that class that you really want to take is not going to be at the right time or full.

23. Register for classes the hour that the option is available. Go to Orientation BEFORE you try to sign up for classes. They will show you how and you won’t have to wait a semester because they have no classes yet.

24. When signing up for classes… keep track of how far apart times are, buildings, and how long.

25. Think about when you get hungry during the day… having a fourth class with no break in between… guarentees hunger during your last class.

26. Your professors will cancel class without notice. You’ll come to an empty classroom often… use the free time wisely.

27. Use all of the resources that your classes give you.

28. There are nice bathrooms around campus… everyday look for a different one… You’ll find some that only have 1 or 2 people who come in to use it, for 3 hours.

29. Suddenly the campus isn’t as busy as it was the 2 weeks after the semester started.

30. People are serious with their studies in college. The professors won’t tell you shut up, it’ll be the students.

31. You’re going to see older and younger people in your classes.. some upwards of 60, some under 17. You still have plenty in common to be buddies. Trust me.

32. All the people who go to college are either married, going steady, or too socially awkward to get a date. Many will want flings. You probably won’t find a relationship within the first 3 weeks.

33. Emailing projects back and forth is not good for group projects… someone’s going to end up doing all of the project for the group.

34. In college, you will have a major assignment every week in at least one of your classes, most likely three of them.

35. In college GPA is even more important… if you can get on the dean’s or presidents list every semester you can make $1,000 or more. Not a joke. (Minium GPA 3.7) but you graduate with honors and sometimes gives speeches at commencement.

36. Try to be a civically engaged scholar… If you can do 100+ hours of community service a semester, You can recieve up to 1,600 dollars from Ameri-Corps. Plus when you transfer or look for a job… it proves you’re awesome

37. Every class (most notably service-learning classes) will want to you do some project outside of class that requires time and you won’t be able to fake it. (My pre-teacher education class require 15 hours of teaching (this is the introduction class to teaching)). My Anthro class requires 5 hours of observing a culture in the first month, paper and logging journal requ

38. Your teachers in different fields will be talking about the same subjects, using the same terms… but they won’t mean the same things.

39. You will be judged on your major. You will be judged by not having one. You won’t be judged on clothes, pj bottoms, or other things.

40. Use all of your resources. The school gym (which is free), the computer labs, the financial aid office, Campus Involvement places, the free lectures, the random parties in the student center that involve once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, the free shows at the theater. The games (which involve scholarship drawings), the clubs, the writing center, the free tutors, the employment center. The library, etc.